On Mon, 2026-02-23 at 11:59 +0000, Matthew Brett via NumPy-Discussion
wrote:
> Hi,
> 

<snip>

> 
> The central point is - who takes responsibility for copyright, in PRs
> with AI-generated code?   We know that can't be the maintainers - so
> it can only be the contributors.  This has always been the case, of
> course, but now we're in a very different situation, where it's very
> easy to end up with copyright code in the PR without realizing it.
> And at the moment, by waving at some documentation, without further
> instruction, we can surely predict from the data we have, that the
> contributor will not be likely to take effective responsibility for
> copyright.  Therefore, there's a substantial risk of copyright leak,
> roughly proportional to the lines of non-trivial, non-mechanical code
> in the PRs.
> 
> Back to the options - 1) don't worry about it because it's not
> important, or 2) put guards in place to make sure the contributor has
> carefully and personally reviewed the PR for copyright concerns, and
> review often to make sure these are effective or 3) delay allowing
> large AI-generated blocks of code until we can see a way forward for
> copyright.
> 
> It's clear I think that some of us are in the 1) case - don't worry
> about it.  I'm absolutely not in that camp, but hey.  All I'm saying
> is - if we're in camp 1, we should make that clear.


To me this seems very exaggerated.  Just because we don't put one issue
(of multiple we have in practice) into the dead center of such a policy
text (or PR template) doesn't equate to ignoring it?
Both policies Ralf brought up include a statement about copyright. We
still could decide to link out from there for the curious readers or
adding guidelines somewhere when and where we should ask more
questions.

I believe all I said was that I don't want to overshoot and worry most
contributors (because yeah, I truly think for the majority of PRs there
is just not much concern).
Maybe we can word-smith something that strikes a good balance there.
And yeah, we probably disagree where that balance lies.
But if adding a brief note on copyright concerns in the policy is the
same as saying "it's not important", I have no idea where to go?!

This discussion tends to feel like we have to start discussion at the
end of "it is a gigantic issue" and then maybe be allowed edge towards:
OK, but this is the minimal thing that won't care off all contributors.
When yeah, probably most here think it isn't the biggest issue, so we
should edge towards: Yeah, maybe it is a bit bigger of an issue than it
seems, so how about we add this sentence and link?

But... to me transparency is the thing that is most directly helpful
(also for social dynamics concerns). So that has to be central.
Maybe it will be ignored, but what can you reasonably put up that won't
be? My guess would be that light-weight is better because it decreases
the chance of lying.

- Sebastian


> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Matthew
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